


Just So Happens

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [146]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers being assholes, Gen, Humor, Minor pining, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, The CT Age Hierarchy, brothers being brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Torrent Command learn a little fact about their Captain.  And then theylearnit.  There is friendly mockery the entire way.
Relationships: CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix (pre-relationship)
Series: Soft Wars [146]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 21
Kudos: 237





	Just So Happens

“No,” Jesse decides after about three seconds of deep, heavy thought. “If we call it The Issue that implies it’s a problem to be fixed.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Captain Rex, the poor ignorant optimist, tries. It’s a valiant attempt, and bold too, trying to pretend Jesse is anything like on his side.

Oh how quickly we all forget ambush promotions, hm? How convenient that some of us _can_ forget ambush promotions. You know what Jesse has to say to that kind of oversight, Captain?

_S_ _uffer_.

“It’s less a flaw,” Jesse continues, all thoughtful preponderance. “More a feature. You accept that as part of the Terms of Service. Part of the risk of getting yourself your very own Brass, even the CT-version store’s-own diet brand.”

Captain Rex twitches. “This is starting to sound not at all like a defense.”

Kix taps their unfortunate Captain’s bracer companionably. “It never was. Do keep up.”

Captain Rex grunts something probably uncomplimentary. “You do remember that _all of you_ are now ‘brass’ too?”

Kix sniffs. Hardcase giggle snorts.

Jesse hisses and taps twice _ kot _1 to ward off whatever dark Force mojo that could spawn. “No need to be _insulting_ Captain.”

The Captain chews on that, and decides the best course is to bodily ignore them. He doesn’t, Jesse notes, declare his intention to ‘be the bigger man’.

(Last time Hardcase had offered to have his boys build a steppy stool to help with that. The conversation did not, by any reasoning, subsequently improve.)

“Okay, okay so. Not An Issue, then. But,” Hardcase says and he pulls that expression he thinks is crafty.

“ _What_ have I told you about doing that _thing_ with your face?” Jesse snaps.

“Not to,” Hardcase breezes and does what he wants anyway. Jesse remembers when he was a cute polite little shiny.

That’s a lie. But if Jesse tells himself that enough…

“ _But_ ,” the shootiest bunny persists. Even if it’s not An Issue, can we all agree it’s at least Very Cute?”

Troopers from a nebula of Companies give Torrent’s Command Staff polite distance, for all their cluster had formed in the middle of a busy offload bay. Kix returns a nod to a Ghost Company trooper Jesse doesn’t recognize, Medic Mark fresh-wet red on his shoulder. One of Crest Squad makes as if to come over and visibly decides whatever they want can wait.

They must look important, the four of them, Jesse laments. They must look deep in serious discussion, maybe even _classified_ discussion, if they’re keeping entirely to in-helm comms.

Jesse’s life really has gotten all polished-up-respectable hasn’t it? Disgusting.

“Huh? Huh?” Hardcase elbows him non-too-gently in his flail. Jesse thwaps back and ignores the giggle that said that was precisely what the Heavy Gunner was going for.

“Cute,” Jesse agrees, only that slightest edge of waspish. “Maybe even ‘sweet’.”

“I can accept sweet,” Hardcase graciously demurs.

They nod in solemn pact.

Hardcase and Jesse, they drive each other half hawkbatshit crazy sometimes. And if they keep rooming together for the rest of however long this war lasts there’s most definitely going to be a karking murder. Or at the very minimum a socially-unacceptably enthusiastic maiming. But they can, more often than not, figure out their way to armistice. And well, Hardcase is _Hardcase_. _Jesse’s_ allowed to poke at him because he knows how far he can go before that poking stops being fun for either one of them. No one else knows where that limit is, so clearly Jesse can’t allow anyone else to start anything.

Whoever decided Jesse and Hardcase would dorm together probably misjudged something. He suspects that ‘whoever’ currently knows regret.

Captain Rex delivers a beautifully nuanced side-eye at them. Solid eight out of ten, blisters right through his visor. Sgt Jesse would have been incredibly wary of that side-eye and the brassly disapproval it conveys.

Lt Jesse fires back a glittering grin. Battlesigns _Amused_ , just to make sure it gets across. Captain Rex returns to pretending to ignore their entire existence.

Cute. Sweet, even.

“Meds. Kix. Come on, you know you have an opinion here.”

Kix looks all above-it-dull at Jesse, then Hardcase, then the Captain.

Captain, their dear Captain, succumbs to optimism again. Jesse can read the entire play that unfolds: the _Thank The Asshole-Shooting Force one of them is being an adult_ in the set of the Captain’s shoulders; the _well I_ _was_ _planning on maturity but I think now I shall suddenly be_ _come_ _contrary_ in the tip of Kix’s head.

Kix observes. He deliberates. “Precious,” he declares.

The Captain’s shoulders sink, defeat. “Coric is my new favorite.”

“Lies and slander, Captain,” Hardcase cackles.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kix adds, and leaves the or-else and the consequences thereof beautifully unsaid.

“You are all terrible.”

“Flatterer,” Jesse simpers.

“Except Jesse.”

_R_ _ude_.

Kix smirks quite interestingly. It does very nice things to his very sharp cheekbones and always works very well with his still-absurdly-overdone hairdo. Jesse’s comm chirps an incoming direct-link.

“ _What have I told you about mooning in public_?”

“You are demoted,” Jesse, informs his roommate on Command’s common link so he has witnesses. “And evicted. I’m going to get someone more polite to replace you.”

“Polite?” Hardcase chortles. “In _Captain Rex’s_ Company?”

“Do I deserve that?” Captain Rex wibbles to the giant, disinterested rumbling of the ceiling vents.

“You do,” Kix soothes. The Captain leans into the sarcastically comforting pats.

That’s the thing about Kix. Even when he’s neatly lashing you up one way and down the other, he’s just so _solid_. Lean-on-able.

Huh. Now that’s a thought. Jesse wonders if he could possibly convince Kix to take Hardcase’s soon-to-be-vacated bunk. Sure would brighten up the dorm. And if Hardcase takes Kix single he can talk as much nonsense in his sleep as he wants. If Jesse wakes up to _maths_ and velocities and angles one more time, there’s most definitely going to be a maiming. A man has to take a stand somewhere.

Hardcase does that thing with his face. Jesse smacks him. Flappery ensues. Jesse wins, obviously.

Lights whir blue warning. Troopers in the hangar below scurry out of marked landing zones as purple force shields cycle in the next round of transports. The vents kick into high gear to stabilize pressure. Giant meters creep back up into green zones before the inner shields drop and let the latest round of ships through to land.

The viewport screen flashes up this group’s manifest. Highlighted and bolded; there’s VIPs among this bunch.

Captain Rex. He. _Well_.

Captain Rex isn’t a sloucher, but he noticeably straightens. He isn’t dour, but he lightens. He isn’t slow, but his steps down to the landing level are, in a word, _peppy_. He bounces down the stairs. Jesse could almost imagine whistling.

Torrent’s Command Staff watch him go.

“Precious,” Jesse declares.

“Absolutely.”

“Clearly.” Kix observes a moment longer. He hums.

That there is an ‘I have a hypothesis’ hum if Jesse’s ever heard one, and he rooms with Hardcase so he’s heard one or two of those.

He nudges the Medic shoulder to shoulder. “Hm?”

“Hm,” Kix muses. “Not yet. I need more evidence before I say anything premature.”

Disappointing, but Jesse can understand wanting to be sure of something first. “Well you won’t get your evidence standing up here.”

Kix tips him one of _those_ smiles. Hardcase feigns a dry-heave and bounds off after the Captain.

“… heard you spent your shakedown causing headaches all up and down the Rimworlds,” Jesse hears as he and Kix approach the little cluster that’s getting an even wider berth than just their four had warranted.

Captain Rex chuckles. “We’ve maybe upended a plan or two,” he understates.

Commander Cody tucks his bucket under one arm and delivers a side-eye that’s at least a 9.5 on Jesse’s Scale of Withering. “I wasn’t talking about the Seppies,” he drawls.

Captain Rex, bucket already off, grins.

Kark. _Jesse must learn that_. It is the most mischievous, un-innocent, dare-you-to-prove-it grin he’s ever been blessed with. It is the tooka that ate every single aisling in the aviary and basted them in the proverbial cream first. It takes whole cycles off the Captain’s face, makes you know damn well it is trouble but you can’t be mad: it’s just so cute. Jesse needs one of those for himself.

“Neither was I,” Captain Rex shoots back.

Commander Cody out and out cackles.

Captain Rex.

_B_ _eams_.

Force kriff a karking Sith, they _were_ actually right. Captain Rex _is_ actually a Littlest _ Khi'vod _2 and it _is_ actually very precious.

“Definitely precious,” Hardcase confirms over their link.

“Entirely too precious,” Kix diagnoses.

“Unfairly,” Jesse groans. He snaps a holo. It’s instinct. He doesn’t have a market for these yet. He’s got a good feeling he will.

Commander Cody tugs the Captain up (up, at _least_ an inch up on his toes. Jesse gets a holo of that too) into a keldabe kiss. They grip necks and knock heads time and again and laugh.

(Jesse distantly wonders how Mack’s doing. He should. He should check in. Sometime)

“… introduce me?”

“No,” Captain Rex decrees. “No I don’t think I will.” The roll of his mouth is something that could very nearly be a pout. “I think I’d prefer to not have you ganging up on me.”

“I would never,” Commander Cody lies and tows his little brother Captain Rex over Torrent’s Command Staff.

Jesse’s HUD chimes. He accepts the direct-link.

“ _That suspicion I had?_ _I suspect the Captain_ _may be_ _the CC’s Hardcase_.”

That image is perfectly cursed and Jesse hates it kark you kindly. He taps _kot_ , for his battered imaginings.

Commander Cody twitches. Captain Rex makes a face that wants to giggle. Ugh. Jesse _sees it_.

(He saves the comm code and doesn’t put any text-based embellishments to Kix’s name in the process. He would never.)

“ _I hate everything about that, Lt Kix.”_

“ _Am I wrong?”_

“ _Look I already have_ _enough_ _of them to manage.”_

“‘ _Enough_ _Hardcases’?_ _Multiple?_ _”_

Jesse swallows. He should, should look in on Mack. Just. Check records; Jesse knows he ended up Coruscant Guard but he can probably dig a little further. See what he’s been up to. Doesn’t even have to contact him or anything, but he, he maybe _could_ if he felt like it. If Mack looks like he’s in a decent enough place.

“ _Counting actual Hardcase? Two_ _of em, more or less,”_ Jesse admits. _“_ _If you round.”_

Kix turns to exchange politenesses with the Commander. It gives Jesse the moment he needs to get all that feelsy banthashit back in its place.

He’ll check in on Mack tonight. See what he sees, and decide where to go from there.

“All lies,” he claims, though he wasn’t paying attention enough to know _what_ it was Captain Rex just said about him. The answer’s good enough, gets the standard chuckles and moves the conversation along.

Direct link from Kix incoming.

“ _You think the Captain will need actual ‘managing’, then.”_

Jesse snorts.

Commander and Captain head off, and the Captain is nearly fused to to the Commander’s hip-pouch. Captain Rex is the type of khi’vod they call _ kam'ika _3, no exaggeration needed.

“ _Look at him._ _Look at his smiley _ vod'ika _4 face. I got socks crustier than him.”_

“ _I’m sure I have aerosols_ _for that.”_

Jesse snerks. Hardcase grins and … subtly, probably, for him, mimes dry-heaving. Asshole can’t even hear their conversation.

One day this _ di'kut _5 is going to fall deeply, madly in love. Jesse will be waiting, to point and laugh and record blackmail.

“Shoo,” Jesse orders. Hardcase salutes a kark-you-kindly and shoos.

“Y’see what I deal with? And you want me to add _the Captain_ to that?”

Kix laughs softly. It’s a really very nice laugh. “We’ll split custody,” he offers, “if it will make things easier.”

Jesse can’t accept fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Strength. If this is your first time dabbling in this little universe of mine, know that this is an in-joke that started [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23407009). Back  
> 2\. Younger Brother. Back  
> 3\. Little Kama. Rio from the Discord server blessed us with this fond nickname: picture a tiny vod'ika hanging on to/swinging from their ori'vod's Kama. Yeah, that. Back  
> 4\. Little Brother. Back  
> 5\. Idiot. Back  
> 


End file.
